


People You've Never Met

by Annie D (scaramouche)



Category: Franklyn (2008)
Genre: F/F, Hallucinations, Porn Battle
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-06-13
Updated: 2009-06-13
Packaged: 2017-10-05 19:51:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 636
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/45484
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scaramouche/pseuds/Annie%20D
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for Porn Battle VIII, prompts: "art", "reality".</p>
            </blockquote>





	People You've Never Met

Emilia is a liar, because she is an artist who appreciates the fundamental beauty of lies. Everything else is grey and ugly, worth little more than the effort to forget them. It is a laughable thing that she seems to be the only one in the world to recognise this reality. That makes it her duty, really, to find beauty in this drab, sorry excuse of a world. It is her calling, and it has finally brought her here, to where she has found it.

This is the in-between.

"You are..." The words are spoken against her skin, just below her ear. Emilia has heard the sweetness of this voice only once before; it is a miracle that she gets to hear it now a second time.

"I am," Emilia says. She winces, because her own voice is ragged by years of cigarette-smoking, but the mouth is still gentle against her neck, the fingers still tender along her arm.

"All your life you've been looking," the voice says. There is no judgment in their tone, none of the sharp edges that are part of Emilia's daily life. She forces herself to catalogue all the nuances of the words for memory, scared that they will flee her later when she wakes. "When you don't even know if you'll recognise it if you find it."

"I will," Emilia says. The fingers are like feathers, gentler than anything Emilia's ever put to the canvas of her body. Maybe it is only here that these sensations can exist — maybe it is only this place that is real. That would explain why she is only allowed to visit it so briefly.

"Searching for beauty," the voice says, kissing gently at her collar bone. The fingers draw lines across her stomach, sketching things Emilia cannot see, and when they dip lower, surely, _surely_, if love could be understand by the crude nerves of the human body, it would feel something like this.

The mouth is still speaking, but the words are now as soft as the fingers, barely audible to Emilia's ears. She can only float, relish, and try her damndest to remember. She will never be able to recreate this moment later with her charcoal and paint, but the least she can do is attempt to capture the perfection of it in her feeble human mind.

"Emilia, Emilia..." It's almost prayer-like, reverential. Emilia smiles, pushing her head back, and the mouth working up her neck is smiling, too. "You are beautiful."

That makes Emilia open her eyes and turn. _Liar_, she wants to say, but then she sees the face and the words die in her mouth.

"Sally," the other whispers, her smile every bit as sweet at her voice. She dips her head down, lips brushing against Emilia's. "Sally, Sally and Emilia..."

She is something else, and Emilia is her mirror darkly. Her face is too bright, her hair too warm. Emilia cannot look away, for she has to study this impossible thing. An angry thought occurs: maybe this is what Emilia would have been if mum hadn't fucked things up. She wants to lash out, push Sally away, but then the smile is back, and it is too beautiful.

What follows is a surprise, Sally's fingers curling in the tight space between Emilia's legs like they're trying to make her pay attention. She lets out a low, surprised gasp, and Sally kisses that, too.

"You will know beauty when you see it," Sally breathes into her mouth. "You will find it."

The current under her skin is too real to be a dream, but it becomes a nightmare anyway when she wakes up, and the hospital around her is exactly as it should be: white, clean and ugly. Emilia presses her face against the trolley mattress and screams silently.


End file.
